Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 64, No. 4, 2008, pp.

857--880

How Adolescents in 27 Countries Understand,

Support, and Practice Human Rights
Judith Torney-Purta∗ and Britt Wilkenfeld
University of Maryland

Carolyn Barber
University of Missouri, Kansas City

An understanding of human rights among young people forms a foundation for

future support and practice of rights. We have used data from 88,000 14-year-olds
surveyed in the 1999 International Association for the Evaluation of Educa-
tional Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study to examine country differences
in students’ knowledge pertaining to human rights compared with other forms
of civic knowledge, and in students’ attitudes toward promoting and practicing
human rights. A hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis examines student-
level predictors (e.g., gender and school experiences) and country-level predictors
(e.g., history of democracy) of rights-related knowledge and attitudes. Countries
with governments that pay more attention to human rights in intergovernmen-
tal discourse (i.e., dialogue between nations and international governing bodies)
have students who perform better on human rights knowledge items. Students’
experiences of democracy at school and with international issues have a positive
association with their knowledge of human rights. Significant gender differences
also exist. Looking at rights-related attitudes, students with more knowledge of
human rights, more frequent engagement with international topics, and more open
class and school climates held stronger norms supporting social movement cit-
izenship, had more positive attitudes toward immigrants’ rights, and were more
politically efficacious. Implications are drawn for psychologists and educators

∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Judith Torney-Purta, Depart-

ment of Human Development, 3304 Benjamin Building, University of Maryland 20742 [e-mail:
jtpurta@umd.edu].
The authors are grateful to Felisa Tibbitts for assistance in conducting the review of research and
to David Suarez for providing data about countries’ emphasis on human rights used in the analysis.
857

C 2008 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
858 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

who wish to play a role in increasing adolescents’ understanding, support, and

practice of human rights.

Knowledge and understanding of human rights and the international sys-

tems that protect them form a foundation for educational and social policies that
strengthen support for rights in the next generation. Four issues are especially
important when examining students’ knowledge and awareness of human rights
in general and of children’s rights in particular.
First, the understanding of international human rights is related to the com-
prehension of the United Nations as the source of international treaties on hu-
man rights. Second, in U.N. documents there has been increasing emphasis on
young people’s participation rights, including their beliefs about the social and
political systems of their own countries and their willingness to allow members
of groups that experience discrimination to exercise their rights to participate
(Melton, 2005). A third issue is the potential effectiveness of citizenship edu-
cation in schools when it includes explicit attention to human rights, especially
participation rights (Torney-Purta, 2002). Fourth, because adults’ attitudes toward
the role of the United Nations in promoting international human rights vary among
nations, the political contexts of governments’ attention to these issues should be
considered. For example, a country in which human rights violations recently
occurred presents a different context for young people to learn vigilance about hu-
man rights than a country in which civil and political rights are long established. A
newly established democratic government may take every opportunity to associate
itself with international human rights protections to strengthen its democratiza-
tion. In countries where everyday violations of rights are not prominent features of
the recent past, adults may be more concerned about whether international human
rights treaties conflict with national interests (McFarland & Mathews, 2005). The
post-Communist countries, Chile, and Portugal fall into the former category, while
the United States and some Western democracies fall into the latter category.
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement
(IEA) Civic Education Study, which collected tests and surveys in 1999 from
nationally representative samples of 14-year-olds in 27 countries,1 includes data
examining adolescents’ understanding and practice of human rights. The following
research questions guided this analysis:
First, how do students in different countries perform when they answer knowl-
edge questions related to international human rights and children’s rights compared
with knowledge questions related to domestic political rights?

1
Countries participating in the IEA Civic Education Study and included in the current analysis are
Australia, Belgium (French), Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England,
Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Hong Kong
(SAR) participated in the study, but country-level statistics are unavailable because of its change in
status in 2000, and it has not been included in this analysis.
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 859

Second, how are students in different countries arrayed on three attitude scales
related to international human rights: attitudes toward citizens’ involvement in
activities promoting social justice and human rights, attitudes toward rights for
immigrants, and a sense of political efficacy?
Third, what factors at the country and student levels predict differences in
knowledge between and within countries? We are interested in students’ knowl-
edge of human rights topics, which is either more or less than would be expected
on the basis of their general knowledge of civic topics. Personal characteristics
(gender and school experiences) are important, along with country characteristics,
such as the history of democracy and the extent to which a country’s government
refers to human rights when participating in intergovernmental dialogues.
Fourth, what factors at the country and student levels predict attitudes related
to human rights? Characteristics similar to those mentioned for the third research
question are examined.
There is little research specifically relating to these issues in the countries
participating in the IEA Civic Education Study. Therefore, our review of literature
will be relatively brief, first considering concern for human rights in a historical
perspective then summarizing a few studies on human rights education in gen-
eral. The review by Peterson-Badali and Ruck in this issue provides additional
information about distinctions between types of children’s rights.

Human Rights and Education

Over the past several decades, there has been speculation and some empirical
research about how young people understand the international system and human
rights. When the first IEA Civic Education Study was conducted in the 1970s,
with 14-year-olds in seven European countries and in the United States, an anal-
ysis compared students’ national knowledge and attitudes to their international
knowledge and attitudes (Torney, 1977). Few country differences emerged in per-
ceptions of the United Nations, but there were considerable differences on other
items. In countries such as the Netherlands, adolescents were more internation-
ally aware than in countries such as the United States. In the Educational Testing
Service’s survey of global awareness in 1976, only half of U.S. college students
knew that the United Nations promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and more than three quarters of the freshmen overestimated the number of
human rights treaties that the United States had ratified (Klein & Ager, cited in
Torney-Purta, 1982).

Prevalence of human rights education. Ways to address human rights in

educational programs have become of interest as the worldwide human rights
movement has grown in the ensuing decades. During the 1990s, the number of
formal democracies in the world increased from 76 to 117 (United Nations Educa-
tional, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2005). This third wave of democracy
860 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

was associated with events such as the ending of apartheid in South Africa and
the disintegration of the Soviet Union. One might expect an upswing in attention
to human rights and education, especially in these new democracies.
A recent study indicated that the number of organizations dedicated to hu-
man rights education quadrupled between 1980 and 1995 (Ramirez, Suarez, &
Meyer, 2006; Suarez & Ramirez, 2007). Many of these organizations provide
curriculum-related materials about human rights, and in collaboration with edu-
cational authorities, human rights topics have been introduced into the national
curricula in many countries (Tibbitts, 1996).
Another index of growing attention to human rights in international discourse
is found in a study that examined countries’ reports to the International Bureau of
Education (IBE) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
(UNHCHR) (Ramirez et al., 2006). The researchers counted the number of times
the term human rights was mentioned in official documents submitted by countries
to the IBE. The score on this indicator was .82 for Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union, .70 for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, .64 for countries in Latin
American and the Caribbean, and .11 for Western European and North American
countries (Ramirez et al., 2006). Table 1 shows these data for each of the countries
in the IEA study and includes a summary indicator based on participation in the
U.N. Decade for Human Rights Education2 and on the IBE ratings (with a range
of 0 to 3). This is our indicator of how much a country’s government focuses on
human rights in education-related intergovernmental discourse.
There are several notable trends. First, the countries in the IEA study that
received the highest score of 3 on the indicator are all post-Communist or Latin
American countries, and a majority of the countries that received a 2 on the indica-
tor are also in these regions. Countries whose governments participate actively in
intergovernmental discourse about international human rights tend to be relatively
new democracies with recent experiences of authoritarian rule. Landman (2005)
noted that leaders of new democracies are wary because of their government’s past
treatment of citizens and are uncertain about the future. They accept international
treaties without reservations and welcome participation in international human
rights efforts. In fact, the older democracies, such as Australia, England, Switzer-
land, and the United States, have scores of 1 or 0 on this indicator of governmental
emphasis on human rights. In the United States, human rights topics are often
framed in a domestic rather than an international context.
To look at another indicator, Freedom House Incorporated (2006) reported
annual ratings of the political rights and civil liberties accorded to citizens. These
ratings show that the countries now stressing human rights in their educational

2
The U.N. Decade for Human Rights Education (1995 – 2004) was proclaimed by the U.N.
General Assembly to encourage nations to develop national action plans to incorporate topics such as
democracy, humanitarian law, and human rights into their education systems.
 Table 1. Indicators of National Commitments to Human Rights and Democracy

Indicator: Government Indicator:

U.N. Decade International Bureau International Bureau Focus on Indicator: Freedom Duration of
Country Participation of Education 1993 of Education 1998a Human Rightsb House Ratingc Democracyd

Australia 1 0 0 1 5.0 2
Belgium (French) 0 1 1 2 4.5 3
Bulgaria 0 0 0 0 3.5 0
Chile 1 1 0 2 4.0 0
Colombia 1 1 1 3 2.0 2
Cyprus 1 0 0 1 5.0 1
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights

Czech Republic 1 1 0 2 4.5 0

Denmark 1 0 0 1 5.0 3
England 1 0 0 1 4.5 3
Estonia 0 1 0 1 4.5 0
Finland 1 0 0 1 5.0 2
Germany 1 1 0 2 4.5 2
Greece 1 0 0 1 4.0 1
Hungary 1 0 0 1 4.5 0
Italy 1 0 0 1 4.5 2
Latvia 1 1 1 3 4.5 0
Lithuania 1 1 1 3 4.5 0
Norway 1 0 0 1 5.0 3
Poland 1 1 0 2 4.5 0
Portugal 1 0 0 1 5.0 1
Romania 1 1 1 3 4.0 0

(Continued)
861
 (Continued) 862

Indicator: Government Indicator:

U.N. Decade International Bureau International Bureau Focus on Indicator: Freedom Duration of
Country Participation of Education 1993 of Education 1998a Human Rightsb House Ratingc Democracyd

Russia 0 1 1 2 1.5 0
Slovak Republic 1 1 1 3 4.5 0
Slovenia 0 1 1 2 4.5 0
Sweden 1 1 0 2 5.0 3
Switzerland 1 0 0 1 5.0 3
United States 0 0 0 0 5.0 3

a
Missing IBE data were imputed from proximal years (e.g., missing 1993 data imputed from 1998 and 2001, missing 1998 data imputed from 1993 and
2001).
b
Government focus on human rights computed by summing the score for U.N. Decade, IBE 1993, and IBE 1998 (range is 0 to 3). Information about
participation in U.N. Decade on Human Rights and mention of human rights in documents submitted to IBE obtained from D. F. Suarez, personal
communication, October 2, 2006, from data used in Ramirez and Suarez (2005).
c
Freedom House rating is a composite score of political rights and civil liberties ratings found in Freedom House (2006). Reverse coded such that 1 = least
free and 5 = most free.
d
Duration of democracy coded from Polity IV database variable called Durability of Democracy into categories: 0 – 19 years coded 0; 20 – 39 years coded 1;
40 – 59 years coded 2; 60 years or more coded 3.
Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 863

documents include many where freedom has been threatened in recent decades
and where democracy is relatively newly established (see right-hand columns of
Table 1). At the country level, the indicators in our analysis will include gov-
ernment emphasis on human rights (based on data provided by D. F. Suarez,
personal communication, October 2, 2006), the Freedom House rating (Freedom
House, 2006), and the duration of democracy indicator from a political science
database, Polity IV (Center for International Development and Conflict Manage-
ment [CIDCM], 2003). This is the number of years since the nation’s last regime
transition. Because the countries in the IEA data set are all democracies, this
corresponds to the number of years since the last transition to democratic govern-
ment. Number of years was recoded into four categories to produce the duration
of democracy variable found in Table 1. In addition to political indicators at the
country level, understanding what human rights education entails is also central to
explaining our results, especially those dealing with participation rights (Roberts,
2003).

The nature and effects of human rights education. Human rights education is
increasingly recognized as a special and important feature of citizenship education
(Howe & Covell, 2005). That a country allows electoral participation as well as
political activism and social movement participation on the part of citizens is a
prerequisite of strong civic or human rights education. In many countries, global
social responsibility, justice, and social action are also part of the discourse in
human rights education (Tibbitts, 2002).
Evaluation data gathered in empirical studies indicate that children’s rights
education is an effective part of social education when it can be linked to issues of
injustice (Decoene & De Cock, 1996). Children who learn about the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and about children’s rights in general, are more
likely to respect the rights of adults and other children, especially minority children
according to Canadian studies (Covell & Howe, 1999). In these efforts the pupils
themselves were involved in the design of the instructional activities, and attention
was paid to the participatory climate of the classroom (Howe & Covell, 2005).
One program in a U.S. classroom used case studies of human rights abuses
and simulation activities to elicit an empathetic response in students. An evaluation
confirmed the intended impact for many participants. However, only a few students
indicated interest in taking social or political action. The researchers concluded
that empathy was an internal response rather than a response that extended into
social action (Gaudelli & Fernekes, 2004). One qualitative study examined the
implementation of human rights education in social studies (Wade, 1994).
Educational influences are important, but there are other correlates of stu-
dents’ awareness of human rights in general as well as of children’s rights to
nurturance and participation. Several studies have taken a developmental perspec-
tive. Older and more affluent children think about children’s rights in abstract
864 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

terms, often based on moral considerations. Younger children display more ego-
centric reasoning in which rights are defined in terms of what one can do (Limber,
Kask, Heidmets, Kaufman, & Melton, 1999; Melton, 1980; Peterson-Badali &
Ruck, this issue; Torney-Purta, 1982).
Gender differences in human rights attitudes have been found. A German
study found that females demonstrated higher personal engagement with human
rights concepts (Müller, 2002), which may be related to findings that female
young adults are more supportive of children’s rights pertaining to nurturance,
such as care and protection (Peterson-Badali, Ruck, & Ridley, 2003). However,
this study found no gender differences in assessments of children’s rights to self-
determination. Other sources report that females are more likely than males to
subscribe to attitudes concerned with social justice and to relate their concerns to
social action (Atkeson & Rapoport, 2003; Haste & Hogan, 2006; Hess & Torney,
1967/2005; Sotelo, 1999).
In summary, many would argue that successful human rights education in-
volves acquiring knowledge of rights and responsibilities, forms of injustice, the
history of movements to fight inequality, and international treaties on human rights
(Amnesty International, 1996). There is also agreement that programs should be
adapted to the cognitive levels of students. Attitudes associated with human rights
education include accepting differences, respecting the rights of others (especially
members of less powerful groups), and taking responsibility to defend the rights
of others (Bernath, Holland, & Martin, 1999; Claude, 1998). Several studies have
found more than one dimension of attitudes toward human rights (Crowson, 2004;
Doise, Spini, & Clemence, 1999; McFarland & Mathews, 2005). These studies
also noted that adults who support human rights in principle may not actually take
action when faced with human rights problems.
This brief review suggests first that our analysis should examine both knowl-
edge of and attitudes toward human rights and second that gender, educational
status of the home, exposure to international issues, and experiences of democracy
(in the classroom and in the school as a whole) should be examined. By using
the IEA Civic Education Study, a large-scale international survey focusing on 14-
year-olds’ knowledge and attitudes, we can explore how these factors influence
students’ understanding and attitudes in support of human rights.

The Current Analysis

Background of the IEA Civic Education Study

The IEA Civic Education Study was a rigorous international study of civic
knowledge and attitudes. After a 5-year period of preparation (including national
case studies and consensus building among researchers from national centers
in the IEA network), test and survey data on civic knowledge, concepts, and
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 865

attitudes were collected from nationally representative samples of 14-year-olds in

28 countries. The sample across all countries totals nearly 90,000 adolescents.
The countries in the IEA Civic Education Study included the United States
(and 2 other English-speaking countries), 2 Latin American countries, 4 Nordic
countries, 11 post-Communist countries, and 7 other European countries. One
Asian country, Hong Kong, also collected data but was not analyzed here because
national statistics were not available. All nations who were members of IEA in
the mid-1990s were invited to participate.
Social scientists developed reliable scales of knowledge and attitudes (in-
cluding 20 scales based on item response theory [IRT]; see Husfeldt, Barber, &
Torney-Purta, 2005; Schulz & Sibberns, 2004). Basic analysis was reported in
Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, and Schulz (2001) and follow-up articles have
addressed the role of schooling (Torney-Purta, 2002), how democratic practices at
school influence students’ political attitudes (Torney-Purta & Barber, 2005), the
knowledge and attitudes of Latino students in the United States (Torney-Purta,
Barber, & Wilkenfeld, 2007), and the attitudinal clusters that exist among U.S.
adolescents (Torney-Purta, Barber, Wilkenfeld, & Homana, 2008).

Analytic Techniques

This article takes a new direction in examining these data. In the first section
of the analysis we will examine individual items from IEA’s test data that are
related to institutions and human rights. First, we describe students’ performance
on the three knowledge items dealing with rights in the context of international
institutions. Students were asked to identify the purpose of the United Nations and
to identify the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (see item descriptions in Torney-
Purta et al., 2001). The CRC item emphasized the right of children to nurturance,
while the other questions dealt with human rights more generally. For comparison
we also look at three knowledge items that deal with citizens’ rights to participate
in their own countries (e.g., what specifically constitutes a political right) and
three knowledge items dealing with domestic political institutions not directly
connected with rights (e.g., the purpose or function of the national legislature)
to show that different countries have diverse patterns of knowledge on these
subgroups of items. All of the knowledge questions are multiple-choice with four
options.
In the second section of the analysis, we examine country differences in
young people’s views about self-determination expressed in attitudes of perceived
political efficacy (especially in comprehending and discussing politics), attitudes
toward the importance of social justice-related participation for citizenship, and
attitudes toward immigrants’ rights to participate. All attitude questions were
answered with Likert-type scales that comprise four points (from strongly agree
866 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

to strongly disagree). The individual items were scaled using IRT methods and
the resulting IRT scales have international means of 10 (standard deviations of 2).
Classical reliability indices are high across countries for these scales.
In the third section, we systematically relate 14-year-olds’ knowledge of
international rights to aspects of the national and international contexts in which
they are growing up and their school experiences employing a series of multilevel
models using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM: Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, &
Congdon, 2004). Each of the multilevel models took into account that the students
were nested within schools, and the schools were nested within countries.3 In the
fourth section are three more HLM analyses for three attitude scales.

Results

Patterns of Response to Knowledge Items Relating to Human Rights

Our first research question is cross-nationally descriptive, giving a picture

of strengths and weaknesses in understanding of international and domestic ap-
proaches to rights. The percentages of students giving correct answers to three sets
of items (domestic institutions, domestic protection of human rights, and interna-
tional protections of human rights) are found in Table 2. One group of countries
performed above the international mean on all three item composites: Cyprus,
Finland, Greece, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. These countries also scored
above the international mean on the knowledge test as a whole (Torney-Purta et al.,
2001).
Students in another group of countries including the United States scored
near the international mean on the two composites of items dealing with rights
(Table 2). The relative performance of students in the United States was lower
on these item composites dealing with rights and on the CRC item than on the
knowledge test as a whole, where they were significantly above the international
mean (Torney-Purta et al., 2001). Recall that the United States was among the
countries with little emphasis on human rights in intergovernmental discourse
(Table 1). Countries such as Denmark, Hungary, and Norway scored above or near
the international mean on domestic institutions and rights, but relatively low on
the items assessing understanding of international rights. These countries do not
focus on human rights in their intergovernmental discourse.
In contrast, in some countries students scored moderately well on knowledge
of both domestic and international human rights, but showed less understanding of

3
HLM allows for student-level outcomes to be predicted by variables at each level of data (country
and student). It also allows for the effects of predictors at each level to be estimated more accurately
by taking into account the fact that students within a school are more similar than students between
schools, and similarly with schools within countries.
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 867

Table 2. Percentage of Students with Correct Answers on Questions Pertaining to Domestic Institu-
tions, Domestic Rights, and International Rights

Convention
Domestic Domestic International on the Rights
Institutions Rights Rights of the Child
Country Compositea Compositeb Compositec Single Itemd

Australia 68 80+ 79 80
Belgium (French) 55− 72 77 79
Bulgaria 50− 80+ 76 68−
Chile 50− 53− 74− 88+
Colombia 49− 59− 71− 77
Cyprus 75+ 83+ 91+ 89+
Czech Republic 73+ 82+ 81 75
Denmark 75+ 73 73− 59−
England 63− 76 78 77
Estonia 70 74 76 76
Finland 76+ 85+ 87+ 77
Germany 71 73 78 72−
Greece 78+ 84+ 87+ 84+
Hungary 75+ 88+ 73− 55−
Italy 79+ 78 87+ 88+
Latvia 60− 72 74− 70−
Lithuania 59− 77 77 79
Norway 80+ 77 75− 73−
Poland 81+ 87+ 86+ 77
Portugal 64− 67− 84+ 91+
Romania 65− 75 77 80
Russia 70 81+ 82 74
Slovak Republic 81+ 87+ 89+ 84+
Slovenia 70 83+ 84+ 74
Sweden 71 68− 71− 80
Switzerland 65− 69− 82 79
United States 74+ 76 79 78
International 69 75 79 77

Note. + and – indicate whether the country mean is above or below the international mean percent
correct by more than 3 percentage points; no sign indicates that the percentage is within 3 percentage
points of the international mean percent correct.
a
Domestic institutions is the average of three items pertaining to domestic laws, legislatures, and
constitutions.
b
Domestic rights is the average of three items pertaining to the role of citizens, political rights, and
threats to democracy.
c
International rights is the average of three items pertaining to the United Nations, Convention on the
Rights of the Child, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
d
The exact wording and correct response of this single item pertaining to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, which also appears in the international rights composite, is not publicly released by IEA.
868 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

domestic institutions. These countries included Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia,

which are post-Communist nations where governments emphasize human rights
in their intergovernmental discourse. Democratic domestic institutions are recent,
and related concepts may not yet be covered in civic education.
Chile and Colombia scored low on all three types of knowledge items. These
countries also had the lowest scores on the test overall (Torney-Purta et al., 2001).
However, in Chile, 88% of the students correctly answered the item on the CRC.
Portugal was unique in a positive way. Students performed very well on the
international human rights composite of items, and 91% correctly answered the
item about the CRC. Although Portugal’s government reported a moderate level
of discourse on human rights in IBE documents, children’s rights are part of
the curriculum and a children’s rights day is celebrated (I. Menenzes, personal
communication).

Patterns of Response on Attitudes Relating to Human Rights

Our second research question is also descriptive, with a focus on attitudes.

Table 3 contains the means for the 27 countries on three scales relating to norms
stressing the importance of belonging to human rights or other social justice-
oriented groups for adult citizens (norms of social movement citizenship), will-
ingness to grant rights to disenfranchised groups (positive attitudes toward immi-
grants’ rights), and participation rights (internal political efficacy).4
Positive human rights attitudes (above the international mean on all three
scales) characterized Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Greece, and the United States.
Scores below the international mean on all three scales were found in Denmark,
England, Estonia, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Other countries showed a mixed pat-
tern, with low levels of political efficacy likely to be found in the Nordic countries.
Portugal is of interest considering the high knowledge of human rights previously
noted. On the attitudinal scales, Portuguese students had high scores on norms
of social movement citizenship and very positive attitudes toward immigrants’
rights. However, their internal political efficacy scores were below the international
mean.
The profiles described here and in the previous sections describe young peo-
ple’s understanding and support for human rights. A more systematic approach is
required to separate factors of importance that are related to these outcomes across
countries.

4
The first two outcomes are IRT scales created as part of the initial analysis of IEA Civic
Education Study data (see Schulz & Sibberns, 2004). The third outcome is an additional IRT scale
created during follow-up analyses conducted by Civic Education Study researchers (see Husfeldt et al.,
2005). The emphasis in the Internal Political Efficacy scale is on a sense of competence and efficacy
in understanding political issues and participating in political discourse.
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 869

Table 3. Country Means for Three Attitude Scales Relating to Human Rights

Positive
Norms of Social Attitude toward Internal Political
Country Movement Citizenship Immigrants’ Rights Efficacy

Australia 9.3− 10.0 9.9

Belgium (French) 9.1− 10.0 9.8
Bulgaria 10.0 9.7− 10.3+
Chile 10.5+ 10.4+ 10.4+
Colombia 11.3+ 10.8+ 10.8+
Cyprus 11.0+ 10.9+ 11.0+
Czech Republic 9.7− 10.0 9.5−
Denmark 9.5− 9.6− 9.3−
England 9.2− 9.7− 9.4−
Estonia 9.2− 9.7− 9.9−
Finland 8.9− 9.8 9.3−
Germany 9.9 9.2− 9.9
Greece 11.4+ 10.6+ 10.6+
Hungary 9.9 9.5− 9.9−
Italy 10.2+ 9.8− 9.9
Latvia 9.5− 9.5− 10.1
Lithuania 10.6+ 9.6− 10.0
Norway 10.2+ 10.3+ 9.5−
Poland 10.1 10.6+ 10.2
Portugal 10.6+ 10.3+ 9.8−
Romania 10.7+ 10.2 10.6+
Russia 9.9 9.8 10.4+
Slovak Republic 10.4+ 9.8− 10.5+
Slovenia 9.6− 9.4− 9.8−
Sweden 9.8− 10.7+ 9.3−
Switzerland 9.6− 9.4− 9.5−
United States 10.3+ 10.3+ 10.3+
International 10.0 10.0 10.0

Note. + and – indicate whether the country mean is significantly above or below the international mean.
Norms of social movement citizenship, positive attitude toward immigrants’ rights (Torney-Purta,
Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001), and internal political efficacy (Husfeldt, Barber, & Torney-Purta,
2005) are IRT scales.

Relation of Student and Country Characteristics

to Rights-Related Knowledge and Attitudes

To answer the third research question, we examine the characteristics of

students and countries that predict whether students responded correctly to each of
the three items relating explicitly to international topics from the Civic Education
Study’s test of knowledge. In particular, we are interested in what predicts a
870 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

correct response to each international item over and above content knowledge, as
measured by the students’ score on the 25-item test of civic content knowledge.
In other words, are there factors other than general civic content knowledge that
predict whether students correctly respond to these three particular items? This
analytic technique was inspired by the use of logistic regression analysis to test for
differential item functioning in single-level models (e.g., Swaminathan & Rogers,
1990).
Because this analysis explores predictors of a dichotomous outcome (i.e., a
correct or incorrect response to each question), we used a binomial hierarchical
generalized linear model (HGLM: Raudenbush et al., 2004). In essence, HGLM is
a multilevel logistic regression analysis using predictors at more than one level (in
this case, students and countries) to predict the likelihood of responding correctly
to an item. HGLM analyzes the log-likelihood of having a correct answer to
the item; for easier interpretation, these log-likelihood (or logit) coefficients can
be transformed to changes in odds, or the chance that students will get an item
correct. This analysis allows us to say that certain characteristics of students or the
countries where they live change their odds of getting an answer correct, expressed
as a percentage of the overall odds. For example, saying that females have 50%
greater odds of getting an answer correct means that a female is 1.5 times as likely
to get the answer correct as a male student, holding other characteristics constant.
This “odds ratio” would be 1.5.
In each analysis, both student- and country-level predictors were considered.
Student-level predictors came from items and scales in the IEA Civic Education
Study’s student-level data. We were interested in how students’ experience in
schools (discussion of international issues with teachers, openness of classroom
climate for discussion, and confidence in the value of school participation), their
overall civic content knowledge score, their attention to international topics in
the newspaper, and their gender and home resource background (measured by
number of books in the home) relate to their knowledge of and engagement with
human rights issues. The scales assessing openness of classroom climate for dis-
cussion and assessing confidence in the value of school participation are IRT
scales that are set to have an international mean of 10 and standard deviation of
2. Items related to discussion of international issues with teachers and attention to
international topics in the newspaper are 4-category scales, with 1 indicating that
the student “never” participates in the activity and 4 indicating that the student
“often” participates in the activity. In addition, for the analysis of students’ atti-
tudes, we also included as predictors the three international knowledge items exam-
ined as part of the analysis described in the previous section, each coded as right or
wrong.
At the country level, we considered the extent to which governments focused
on human rights, using the country-level measures described previously and found
in Table 1 (government focus on human rights) and also Freedom House ratings,
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 871

and the duration of democracy index.5 Only the government’s focus on human
rights in intergovernmental dialogue and Freedom House ratings were considered
in the analysis of international human rights items (because duration of democracy
did not significantly predict performance in initial analysis). Only Freedom House
ratings and duration of democracy indices were considered in analyses of the
attitudinal scales because human rights focus was not a significant predictor of
attitudes.

Predictors of student responses to three international rights knowledge items.

Table 4 summarizes the results of the HGLM (multilevel logistic regression)
analysis for three individual items relating to international organizations or human
rights instruments. Looking first at the item on the purpose of the Declaration of
Human Rights, students in countries with less political freedom were more likely
to respond to this item correctly, even after taking into account students’ overall
civic content knowledge and the other predictors in the model. Looking within
countries, there was a significant gender effect. After controlling for content
knowledge and other predictors, females had 13% greater odds than males of
responding correctly to this item (for an odds ratio of 1.13, as reported in Table 4).
A similar gender effect that favored females was also found when analyzing
responses to the item on the CRC. Compared to males, females had 65% greater
odds of responding to this question correctly, regardless of their level of civic
content knowledge (odds ratio = 1.65). In addition, students who were more
confident in the value of participating in their schools and those who read more
international news were also more likely to respond correctly to this item. Looking
at the country level, students were more likely to respond correctly to the CRC
item if they lived in countries in which the national government focused on human
rights issues in intergovernmental dialogue.
Students who discussed international politics with teachers and who read
about international news in the newspaper were more likely to respond correctly
to the question about the purpose of the United Nations regardless of their overall
level of content knowledge. Males were more likely to correctly identify the
purpose of the United Nations (in contrast to the previously discussed items about
rights). Females had only 85% of the odds that males did of responding correctly to
this item (odds ratio = .85). Living in a country with a high score on the Freedom
House index also was related to a correct answer on this item.
In summary, after taking into account students’ general civic content knowl-
edge, we found that characteristics of the countries in which they reside and
characteristics of their individual engagement in school and discussing or reading
about international issues predicted how students responded to specific knowledge

5
In the multilevel analyses, we use the original coding of the durability of democracy index
(number of years) available from CIDCM (2003) not the recoding into 4 categories.
 872

Table 4. Individual- and Country-Level Predictors of Correctly Answering International Rights Items

Purpose of the Purpose of the

Declaration of Convention on the Purpose of the
Human Rights Rights of the Child United Nations
b (SE) Odds Ratio b (SE) Odds Ratio b (SE) Odds Ratio

Constant 1.95 (.14) 7.04 1.60 (.14) 4.94 2.59 (.09) 13.35
Country level
Freedom index −.20+ (.11) .81 n.s. n.s. .22+ (1.12) 1.24
Government focus on rights n.s. n.s. .16+ (.08) 1.17 n.s. n.s.
Individual level
Discuss international issues with teacher n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. .03∗ (.01) 1.03
Read international news in paper n.s. n.s. .03∗ (.01) 1.03 .05∗∗ (.02) 1.05
Confidence in school participation n.s. n.s. .02∗∗ (.01) 1.02 n.s. n.s.
Openness of classroom climate n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.
Books in home n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.
Female .13∗∗ (.03) 1.13 .50∗∗ (.04) 1.65 −.17∗∗ (.04) .85

Note. Analysis controls for students’ overall content knowledge (as measured by IRT score).
+ p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗∗ p < .01.
Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 873

items relating to international rights issues. Response patterns to the two human
rights items differed from the item about the United Nations as an institution.
Specifically, females were more likely to respond correctly to items pertaining to
human rights documents, while males were more likely to respond correctly to
the question about the United Nations. At the country level the children’s rights
item was more likely to be correctly answered in countries where the govern-
ment focused on human rights in its intergovernmental dialogue (which are the
post-Communist or postdictatorship countries). In a similar vein, countries where
the observance of human rights is less consistent (those with low Freedom House
scores) were more likely to correctly answer the question about the Universal Dec-
laration of Human Rights. In contrast, the general item about the United Nations
was more likely to be correctly answered in countries with high Freedom House
ratings.

Predictors of student responses on three rights-related attitude scales. In the

second set of multilevel analyses, we considered how responses to each of the three
specific knowledge items predict students’ engagement in and attitudes toward hu-
man rights. We examined the three civic attitudinal outcomes described in Table 3:
norms of social movement citizenship, positive attitudes toward immigrants’
rights, and internal political efficacy. Because this analysis examined continu-
ous not dichotomous outcomes, regular HLM modeling techniques were appro-
priate. Each outcome had an international mean of 10 and a standard deviation
of 2.
Table 5 summarizes the results from multilevel (HLM) analysis of students’
attitudes (coefficients can be interpreted as unstandardized b coefficients). A com-
parison of this analysis to the parallel analysis of knowledge items in Table 4
shows that student-level predictors were much stronger for attitudes than for
knowledge. Looking first at students’ norms of social movement citizenship and
positive attitudes toward immigrants’ rights, we found no relationship between the
country-level predictors and the average student attitudes in that country. How-
ever, students who lived in more recently established democracies expressed more
political efficacy than students in older democracies. Students also felt more effi-
cacious in countries where there was less overall political freedom, according to
Freedom House ratings. Recall that the items in the political efficacy scale relate
to understanding and discussing political issues.
At the student level we found a number of characteristics that predicted atti-
tudes toward rights. While no significant gender difference existed for norms of
social movement citizenship, females had more positive attitudes toward immi-
grants’ rights. In contrast, males expressed higher levels of efficacy in discussing
political institutions and issues (perhaps a precondition for exercising participation
rights). Home background related to only one attitude scale (controlling for other
variables). Students from more advantaged homes had higher political efficacy.
874 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

Table 5. Individual- and Country-Level Predictors of Rights-Related Attitudes

Norms of Positive
Social Attitude toward Internal
Movement Immigrants’ Political
Citizenship Rights Efficacy

Constant 10.04 (.10) 10.00 (.07) 9.99 (.07)

Country level
Freedom index n.s. n.s. −.23∗ (.11)
Duration of democracy n.s. n.s. −.01∗ (.00)
Individual level
Civil content knowledge .003∗ (.00) .01∗∗ (.00) .01∗∗ (.00)
Item: Declaration of Human Rights .12∗∗ (.03) .07∗∗ (.03) −.11∗∗ (.03)
Item: Convention on the Rights of the Child .12∗∗ (.02) .06∗∗ (.02) −.11∗∗ (.03)
Item: Purpose of the U.N. .07∗ (.03) n.s. −.19∗∗ (.03)
Discuss international issues with teacher .04∗∗ (.01) −.02∗∗ (.01) .25∗∗ (.02)
Read international news in paper .11∗∗ (.01) .14∗∗ (.02) .38∗∗ (.02)
Confidence in school participation .19∗∗ (.01) .25∗∗ (.01) .05∗∗ (.01)
Openness of classroom climate .07∗∗ (.01) .09∗∗ (.01) .04∗∗ (.01)
Books in home n.s. n.s. .08∗∗ (.01)
Female n.s. .44∗∗ (.05) −.64∗∗ (.05)

Note. Coefficients are unstandardized b coefficients.

∗ p < .05; ∗∗ p < .01.

Overall civic content knowledge related positively to students’ norms of

social movement citizenship, to their attitudes toward immigrants’ rights, and
to their internal political efficacy. There were additional significant effects for
responding correctly to individual items about international topics over and above
the effects of the general content knowledge measure. Knowing the purpose of the
Declaration of Human Rights and the purpose of the CRC significantly predicted
more positive views of social movement activities as important for citizenship and
more positive attitudes toward the rights of immigrants. Knowing the purpose of the
United Nations had an additional significant and positive effect on the students’
views of social movement citizenship (but not on attitudes toward immigrants’
rights). While overall content knowledge significantly predicted political efficacy,
responding correctly to individual international knowledge items negatively related
to this outcome. This may be because the items on the efficacy scale refer primarily
to competence in discussion participation, and students are likely to be discussing
national politics and not human rights declarations or the United Nations.
Students’ experiences in school related to the three attitudinal scales in similar
ways. Students who often read about international topics in the newspaper, who
perceived that their classroom climate was open to discussion, and who felt con-
fident in the value of students’ participation in their schools had stronger norms
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 875

favoring social movement citizenship, more positive immigrants’ rights attitudes,

and a higher sense of political efficacy. Discussion with teachers about interna-
tional topics was associated with a stronger view of social movement citizenship
as important and with higher efficacy but was also associated with more neg-
ative attitudes toward immigrants’ rights. It may be that when teachers discuss
immigration as an international issue they emphasize its problematic aspects.

Discussion

The picture of young people’s understanding, support, and practice of human

rights from this international empirical analysis is an interesting one. The country’s
context for recognizing human rights makes a difference, particularly in the extent
to which adolescents know about what is contained in the CRC. The condition of
civil and political rights in a country also makes a difference, particularly in the
extent to which adolescents in that country are likely to know about the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and about the United Nations.
Females across countries express lower levels of political efficacy than males,
but they are more likely to support the rights of immigrants, and know about U.N.
instruments covering human rights. Conversely, males across countries express
higher levels of efficacy for political participation and know more about the United
Nations as an institution than females. This helps to clarify some previous research
on smaller samples, where gender differences favoring females in support for
nurturance rights have been reported but where the picture for self-determination
or participation rights has been mixed. Furthermore, this analysis of IEA data
shows that students with more knowledge of human rights issues have more
positive attitudes toward social justice organizations and the rights of immigrants.
There is strong corroboration that for all students the everyday experience of
democracy is important in shaping attitudes. In other words, being in a classroom
where students are free to discuss opinions and in a school where students feel
that they can participate in a productive way are both positive for young people’s
human rights support. Students who read international news are more likely to be
knowledgeable and to have positive attitudes about human rights even after taking
other factors into account. All of these findings are based on surveys, but they
could be further explored with interviews (see Richardson, 2006, for examples).
The process of formulating useful policy recommendations based on empirical
analysis begins with a delineation of the nature and dimensions of the problem
to be addressed. We believe that there are three dimensions to the problem faced
by psychologists, other social scientists, and educators who wish to contribute
to increasing understanding and action to defend human rights among young
people. First, many social scientists do not sufficiently consider important aspects
of context in the promotion of human rights. Second, they often lack an in-
depth understanding of the development of young people’s attitudes and the role
876 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

of classroom processes in fostering respect for human rights among students

(including the policy innovations necessary to increase attention to democratic
practices or international issues in schools). Third, researchers advocating for
change often use fragmentary studies of limited samples that are unconvincing
to policymakers. We will look at these in turn, examining how the analysis in
this article might help interested researchers and practitioners to become more
effective human rights advocates and contributors to research-based policy.
Many psychologists and educators are unaware of the extent to which differ-
ences in national context affect learning about human rights in different countries,
and could benefit from the perspective of other disciplines that have a more explicit
focus on national and international political contexts. The results in the United
States and several European countries point to the importance of the foreign policy
of governments in the area of international human rights and children’s rights as it
may influence the implementation of civic and human rights education programs.
It is striking that the policy climate itself (operationalized as a government’s em-
phasis on human rights in its intergovernmental dialogue) has at least a modest
relation to the extent to which young people in that country know what is included
in the CRC. Furthermore, factors related to the implementation of guarantees of
human rights for adults in the country (indexed by the Freedom House index) and
how long a country has been a democracy both relate to young people’s knowledge
and attitudes. The country-level effects are modest, but they are maintained even
after controls for several other relevant factors are considered.
Another way of framing this same issue was recently voiced by Huston (2005)
in a policy brief issued by the Society for Research in Child Development. She
noted that in many parts of Europe, “the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child is used to frame child policies that need no justification beyond the goal of
promoting human rights” (p. 16). In contrast, references to “international human
rights” tend to make policymakers in countries such as the United States suspicious
rather than supportive.
Future analysis of the IEA data set, and further studies by psychologists,
should explore other aspects of national political context. Interdisciplinary collab-
orations with political scientists, sociologists, or specialists in international law
would be valuable. These collaborations have the potential to enrich our under-
standing of how national and international contexts shape the individual citizen’s
experience and how to make effective policy interventions. In other words, we
should take further steps to understand how distal factors, such as the actions
taken by governments, are translated into proximal experiences that are influential
for students. This may include encouragement to include international topics in
curricula, to give just one example.
Many psychologists and educators recognize that the experience of self-
determination and democracy at school matters for the human rights attitudes of
individual students. This analysis of IEA data corroborates that students who have
Adolescents’ Support for Human Rights 877

the most exposure to the practice of democratic ideals in their classrooms and
schools are the most likely to hold positive human rights attitudes. Creating an
open and respectful climate for discussion in the classroom and giving individual
students a voice in their schools should be encouraged in the practice of teachers
and administrators by relevant policy initiatives and training. When psychologists
in collaboration with sociologists of education and education policy researchers
have considered these processes in depth, they will be in a better position to assist
in the complex process of changing practices to enhance students’ participatory
rights in their schools.
Social scientists often conduct research with small groups to describe the
nature of the gap between subscribing to ideals and actually engaging in relevant
behavior. In our broader analysis, the extent to which individuals support human
rights and action for social justice in principle, but not in action, is illustrated by
differences in the factors predicting attitudes toward social justice activities for
citizens and support for immigrant rights and those predicting a sense of political
efficacy. For example, females are more likely to support rights in principle and to
value membership in rights-oriented organizations, but they are less likely to feel
competent to engage in the political system by discussing politics or exercising
their rights to participate. These are among the issues that can be investigated
using existing databases in order to provide evidence to bring to the attention of
policymakers. The analysis in this article shows the advantages of being able to
examine human rights education issues at both the individual and country level
and allows us to investigate aspects of national context that vary in a large cross-
national data set. The IEA study also collected data from teachers and principals in
the schools that these students attended, and there are many possibilities for further
investigations of human rights attitudes by adding the school level to our models
(Barber, 2006). It is clear that schools and other societal institutions can build a
strong foundation for the development of understanding, support, and practice of
human rights by supporting democratic practices at school and by encouraging
students to become informed about international issues. Psychologists, educators,
and social scientists have a distinct and important role to play in this process.

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JUDITH TORNEY-PURTA is a Professor of Human Development at the Univer-

sity of Maryland, College Park. She received her PhD in Human Development
from the University of Chicago. Her major research interests include the devel-
opment of social and civic attitudes among adolescents across nations and the
political engagement of college students. She received the Decade of Behavior
Research Award in Democracy in 2005.
BRITT WILKENFELD is a Doctoral Candidate in Human Development at the
University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in Developmental Science.
Her major research interests include neighborhood and school effects on civic
outcomes and positive youth development, especially among minority adolescents.
880 Torney-Purta, Wilkenfeld, and Barber

CAROLYN BARBER is an Assistant Professor of Educational Research and

Psychology at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She received her PhD
in Human Development from the University of Maryland. Her major research
interests include social aspects of secondary schooling, especially as related to
civic and gifted education. She also has methodological interests in multilevel
modeling and large-scale data set analysis.